OT: Cornell basketball season ends tonight

Sorry for the non-hockey post, but tonight our basketball team finishes its season with a game against Brown. It's been a very good year for the Big Red IMO. Right now they're tied with Harvard and Dartmouth for second place in the Ivy League (Yale is a half game behind). Tonight's games:

Cornell at Brown (Go Big Red obviously!)
Harvard at Penn (Go Penn!)
Dartmouth at Princeton (Go Princeton!)
Columbia at Yale (Go Columbia!)

If Cornell, Penn, & Princeton all win tonight, and Yale loses either tonight or on Tuesday against Brown, Cornell will finish in sole possession of second in the Ivy League (Penn is the champion and will be representing the Ivy League in the NCAA tournament). I think sole possession of second would be a great achievement for our team! GO BIG RED!

-Chris '03

Cornell finished the season with a 77-61 rout of Brown. It was a much more successful season than predicted, however -- I think most of the mags had us at 6th or 7th.

Tonight:

Cornell beat Brown
Penn beats Harvard
Yale beat Columbia
Princeton beats Dartmouth

With the exception of Columbia losing to Yale, all the games last night went exactly as we hoped. Though our season is over, Yale still has one more game, thus one more chance to lose and finish behind us in the standings. They're playing at Brown, against a Brown team that beat them earlier in the year, so there is cause for optimism. We're assured of a better Ivy record than five of the other seven Ivy teams, though, which is very impressive to me at least. With a Yale loss, we would finish with a better record than all, save Penn.

Much like our football team, I couldn't be happier with our basketball team and the direction in which Donahue has taken the program. Look at the last four seasons: 5 wins, to 9 wins, to 11 wins, to 13 wins. Consistent improvement with each season. It's conceivable that within a couple seasons Cornell could finally break the strangehold that Penn & Princeton have held on the Ivy League title for the last couple decades. Weird to think that Cornell's current freshman were still almost babies the last time we appeared in the NCAA tournament (wasn't it the late eighties?).

Imagine a season in which both our hockey and basketball teams appeared in the NCAA tournament. Not such a longshot fantasy anymore. As I said, our football program also looks to be in great hands with the new coach. I never expected anything like the dramatic improvement they showed this season (after an 0-for-the-Ivy season the year before). It goes without saying that the lacrosse team (Ivy League Co-Champions last year) is doing very well. It's certainly an exciting time to be a Big Red sports fan!

-Chris '03

Don't forget wrestling. Second in the EIWA's to Lehigh by only 2.5 points, with nine wrestlers qualifying for nationals.

Or track. Men's and Women's teams have been racking up the Heps championships for the past couple years now.

[Q]peterg Wrote:

Don't forget wrestling. Second in the EIWA's to Lehigh by only 2.5 points, with nine wrestlers qualifying for nationals.[/q]

Or women's polo with five straight national championships!!!

I was bored today, so I decided to take 5 minutes and look at Cornell's finishes in three of the "big" college sports (hockey, football, basketball). I was going to add baseball & lacrosse, but... didn't. I don't know why.

FOOTBALL: Sole possession of 3rd place in the Ivy League. Again, I can't say enough about the job Knowles did with this team. From winless in the league to better than 5 of the other teams. Wow.

BASKETBALL: Still somewhat up in the air. Best case, we're in sole possession of 2nd place. Worst case, we share 2nd place with Yale.

HOCKEY: We're #1! Ivy League Champs!

OK, so our average finish is 2nd place. Harvard & Penn were the only schools that were as competitive as us across the board. Harvard finished 2nd to us in hockey, they won the Ivy in football, and will either finish 3rd or 4th in basketball, depending on the outcome of the aforementioned Yale game. So best case scenario for Harvard is an average finish of 2nd as well.

Penn has a better average with their championship in basketball and their 2nd place finish in football. However, I'm calling shenanigans on them because they avoided having a hockey team that would no doubt drag their average down.

I just thought it was interesting to see that the schools that are good in one sport, tend to be good across the board. Hmmm.... That's really not that interesting (or much of a revelation since most would assume that anyway). I'm not quite sure why I wasted 5 minutes on that. Oh well.

-Chris '03

[Q]CornellChris Wrote:
Penn has a better average with their championship in basketball and their 2nd place finish in football. However, I'm calling shenanigans on them because they avoided having a hockey team that would no doubt drag their average down.[/q]

I think we have to consider Penn and Columbia as tied for 7th place in hockey.

[Q]jtwcornell91 Wrote:

CornellChris Wrote:
Penn has a better average with their championship in basketball and their 2nd place finish in football. However, I'm calling shenanigans on them because they avoided having a hockey team that would no doubt drag their average down.[/Q]
I think we have to consider Penn and Columbia as tied for 7th place in hockey.[/q]

I like the way you think! Since Harvard's best possible finish in basketball would be a tie for 3rd (and all our finishes would then be untied, since it would mean a Yale loss on Tuesday), I'm (un)officially declaring us Kings of the Ivy League! Of course, we could also add in lacrosse and our co-championship would give us the edge. Somebody write a press release. The world must know of our greatness.

-Chris